Scoping review

According to Grimshaw [12, p.34], scoping reviews are “exploratory projects that systematically map the literature available on a topic, identifying key concepts, theories, sources of evidence and gaps in the research”. The aim of the proposed review is to identify, explore and map the literature about Haredi women in the UK and their interaction with maternity services using the breadth of Grimshaw’s approach [12] and to identify gaps in the literature, therefore a scoping review was identified as the best methodology.

The proposed scoping review will be conducted in line with the methodological framework of Arksey and O’Malley [13] and will follow their proposed stages: identifying the research question, identifying relevant studies, selecting studies, charting the data, and collating, summarizing and reporting the results. We will also follow the updated guidance for conducting scoping reviews by Peters et al. [14]. We will adhere to PRISMA-ScR (PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews) and will include the following sections in our review: abstract, introduction, methods, results and discussion. Each of these sections will have sub-sections, as directed by the PRISMA tool [15].

We aim to publish the findings of the review, as Arksey and O’Malley [13] suggested that scoping reviews can be published as a method in their own right.

Identifying the research question

The research question for the proposed scoping review is: what is known about the needs of Orthodox women and their partners that are using maternity services?

The sub-questions:

1. How are these needs being met or not in UK maternity services?
2. What is known about the experiences of Orthodox women and their partners that are using maternity services in the UK?

Identifying relevant studies

Following Arksey and O’Malley’s [13] recommendation, the proposed scoping review will use a broad search strategy and will therefore cover a range of study designs and qualities. This will include peer reviewed papers as well as “grey” literature, such as local reports and community publications (e.g., rabbinical instructions). We will identify studies via different sources such as electronic databases, reference lists of other relevant studies (including backward and forward citation search), hand-searching of key journals and others (for example, brochures/leaflets that will be collected by community members). If we decide to contact authors of published papers for additional data, this will be stated in the review.

As a first step, the following databases will be searched: OpenGrey, PubMed, Web of Science, Cinahl, SocINDEX, Ethos, and ProQuest. However, the search will be an iterative process, informed by the PPI work that will be conducted in parallel to the literature search.

Selection of eligible studies

The literature search strategy will be as comprehensive as possible within the time and budget constraints of the PCAF bridge programme (six months in total). We will identify and agree on keywords to be used in our search, these will be presented in a table, as demonstrated in Table 1. This, however, will be an iterative process, and as we immerse ourselves in the evidence, additional keywords may be identified and incorporated into the search strategy. The search strategy will be piloted by the main author, to assess the appropriateness of keywords and databases.

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Table 1. search strategy and keywords.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0323838.t001

The main author, supported by a qualified librarian, will conduct the initial review of titles and abstracts, using the above databases and the agreed keywords. This will be followed by a screening process, conducted by the main author, to remove any obvious irrelevant papers. To assess for consistency, a second reviewer will independently repeat this process with a sample of papers, and the approach will be adjusted if indicated. The main and one co-author will then review papers’ abstracts and full texts, to identify relevant studies, against the inclusion criteria. Any disagreement will be resolved by either consensus or by a third reviewer (the other co-author). We will utilise the PRISMA flow diagram to illustrate the literature search process [16].

Inclusion criteria

The inclusion criteria for the proposed scoping review will be predefined and will follow the Population, Concept, Context (PCC) framework, recommended by the Joanna Briggs Institute guidance for Scoping Reviews [14].

1. P- Ort hodox Jewish women and their partners
2. C- needs and experiences, Jewish laws
3. C- maternity services

We will include original papers discussing the experiences and needs of Orthodox Jewish women and/or their partners when interacting with maternity services from conception to one year postpartum. Papers that conducted interviews at a different time postnatally will be included, as long as they investigated the experiences and/or needs within this timeframe.

An initial scoping search we conducted suggested that the literature on the topic is scarce; this led us to make a few decisions, as described here. Firstly, although the Haredi are the most observant group within Orthodoxy, we decided to include all Orthodox Jewish people. This is also because the terms “Orthodox” and “Haredi” are sometimes used interchangeably.

We have also decided to extend the search beyond the UK, to enable us to identify gaps in UK maternity services that may not exist in other countries. To this end the search will include papers in English from all OECD countries, including Israel, the home to the largest Haredi community in the world. We have also decided to include papers from all publication years; this, however, may be amended, depending on the search results.

Exclusion criteria

To ensure that data included in the review is valid and full we will exclude papers with no available full text. We will also exclude papers that are not specific to Orthodox Jewish people and/or maternity services. Papers in languages other than English will also be excluded due to lack of resources and the assumption that most relevant studies would be from Israel, North America and the UK and in English.

Charting the data

As recommended in the scoping review literature, the search process will be detailed in a clear and transparent way to allow for replication [13,14]. This will include the search strategy, key terms used and search dates. We will describe any amendments to the protocol in the main text. As stated by Tricco et al [15] no risk of bias assessment is required for scoping reviews.

Collating, summarising and reporting the results

All team members will independently read the included papers. Following Thomas and Harden’s thematic synthesis process [17], the main author will conduct a line-by-line coding and draft initial themes, which will be shared with all team members via email. We will then hold a series of collaborative discussions via Microsoft Teams to explore the content of the studies and assess the extent to which the emerging themes reflect the data. Following these discussions and consensus-building, the main author will summarise the findings in a shared Excel spreadsheet, which will be accessible to all authors. The number of studies identified, the emerging themes, and the main results of the studies will be reported.

Adapting Arksey and O’Malley’s recommendation [13], we will create a table, using Excel software, to present the following information for each study: type of paper (e.g., research/ local report), author/organisation affiliation, year of publication, study populations, study aim/focus, geographic location, study design and methodology, and themes and categories of the main findings. Lastly, we will identify and discuss any gaps in knowledge.